Grandstream HT502 Update

[VOIPoTim]

We are still seeing about 10% of the Grandstream HT502 adapters that are in use by our customers not properly maintaining their connection to our network and not reconnecting to our network when there is any kind of a short network interruption.

With the adapters in question, you've likely had to reboot them when they've lost their connection in order to get them to reconnect to our network so they can receive incoming calls. This is not the way they are supposed to function and they should not need regular reboots. Even when there is a service outage, they should automatically recover from that on their own without you needing to do anything.

We've been working with Grandstream to isolate the issue and identify the commonalities in the devices experiencing issues in order to find a fix. So far, this has been unsuccessful.

While the majority of them are maintaining their connection properly, the 10% that are not have created a great deal of problems and made our service seem very unrelaible for many of you.

Once this issue surfaced, we halted shipments of them and began shipping Linksys PAP2 adapters for new orders. The Linksys devices have been problem-free, stayed connected, and reconnected nearly instantly on their own after outages. In a nutshell, they performed as expected and have allowed us to deliver a reliable service that better resembles the stable service we've delivered over the past two years.

At this point, we are preparing for a potential large-scale recall of the Grandstream HT502 devices exhibiting this behavior.

On Thursday, we're going to work with suppliers to determine how quickly we can secure the necessary additional Linksys PAP2 inventory for the replacements and plan out the logistics involved.

Our developers will also be working with Grandstream on Thursday to explain that we're about to issue a "recall" to pull their devices from our network as a last resort to make sure there is nothing else that can be done. If there's not a final "fix" from Grandstream that we feel comfortable with in place by the end of this week, we'll begin the replacements next week.

While this is a very expensive proposition, I feel it's necessary to restore stability for the customers with the devices in question so they can truly experience VOIPo service. In addition, nearly all our support load is related to this issue so we want to move on and start focusing again on enhancing service for all customers. Overall, it's just the right thing to do unless by some miracle Grandstream provides us with a fix on Thursday.

We want to thank all of you for your patience as we've worked through this and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it's caused you if you have one of the devices in question.

We appreciate your business and continued confident in VOIPo. Expect an update on Friday.